C.A.T.S.

This is a rather good drama, very much of its time, that begins with a graphic gang rape, becomes a meandering cop story before hurtling us into the sex and violence underbelly of communes cum cults cum dogmatic nihilism. For the most part naturalistic and frank, which in part means we get the cop full frontal as well as all the girls (including a very early appearance from Sylvia Kristel) but also a feeling that we are witnessing nothing too forced. Only the later glimpses of the darker activities with the psychedelic edge hint at anything particularly stylish, but the film is none the worse for that. All performances are fine and even the scenes with the 'posh' kids and their parents are well done. A film that could not be made today and an intelligent look at counter culture of the day.

In what seems to almost come out of today's headlines.....a group of rich boys decide to rape and terrorize people for a goof.

They rape middle-aged women in their own house while forcing their husbands to see it all. All this while destroying their personal property. You see paintings get slashed, furniture get ripped up, and personal items smashed just for the fun of it. And these are valuable items. And the rape scenes may be hard to watch for some.

Then we get a police drama. The inspector in question targets the group for imprisonment. We see a lot of technical details about police work. Euro-flicks like to do that it seems. (Remember "Man on the Roof?") These bits almost play like a documentary.

The pace seems to get slower as we move on, but the intriguing characters keep it in focus. And the culprits are almost likable despite their sliminess.

This film is hard to find. But worth a look. The director Fons Radermakers (spelling?) later won a Foreign Film Oscar for "The Amateur."

It has been said of the 1960s, if you can remember them, you weren't really there; the same has on occasion been said of the 1970s. This film dates from 1973, and I must have been there because I watched it on Monday and didn't remember it, although shortly before he uttered them, I repeated the villain's last words verbatim – words that can't be repeated here.

I'd probably forgotten "Because Of The Cats" not because of the passage of 4 decades, but because it is such rubbish.

This is an off-beat film, even for the 1970s; the gang rape scene at the beginning is both extremely graphic and very realistic, but not really necessary; the gratuitous male nudity is inexcusable, as is the wooden dialogue. As for the terrible plot...was any police investigation in the UK, Holland or anywhere ever conducted like this? There was no DNA in the 70s, but the same cannot be said for fingerprints.

And the detective, this is not the Van De Valk I remember from the TV series. Unless you have an unhealthy fascination for pubic hair and/or male genitalia, give this one a miss.

This slightly odd thriller is another of the early 70's movies which played upon the fears generated by the Manson Family murders of 1969. These 'counter-culture gone bad' movies often focus on cult groups who commit crimes and this movie is no different in this regard. Set in Amsterdam, a detective investigates a series of vicious house invasions committed by a gang of rich youths. They don't need money, so the source of their crimes turns out to be cult based.

Opening with a disturbing attack on a married couple where the woman is gang raped while the husband is forced to helplessly look on, this is a movie which doesn't pull its punches. Its sexual frankness is at least partially down to its Dutch origins I am guessing, seeing as this nation was, and remains, one of the most sexually liberated in the world. This results in a film with a great deal of matter-of-fact full-frontal nudity throughout but also the graphic opening attack sequence. So the film definitely falls into the exploitation bracket, although it isn't all that excessive beyond this particular scene. It soon afterwards boils down to a detective story running parallel to one detailing the dramas surrounding the criminal youths. It's not in all honesty all that dynamically told to tell you the truth and it is a little uneventful overall. I thought also that the whole cult side of the story could have been magnified more, as this type of thing never really gets old but it was underplayed here somewhat. Still, this is still a reasonably distinctive film, probably mainly on account of it being a counter-culture themed film from the Netherlands, which is not exactly the norm. Definitely worth a watch but it's nothing too essential.

This film is now available in all its 98 minute glory on a Dutch (Region 2) DVD for a very reasonable price. The really good news is that the rape scene is nothing like as graphic or as protracted as other reviewers suggest. The five minutes are intercut with the police questioning of the victims. I'm at a loss to understand why four minutes were cut from the original British release as the rape scene itself lasts for no more than two minutes.

My title for this review has a question mark because it is very different from the treatment we have become used to in long-form dramas like "The Bridge". The film is very much of its time. It is certainly not as action-packed as modern American dramas which may be why some reviewers find it slow. I thought the portrayal of Van Der Valk was reasonably true to the novels save, of course, for the philandering with Feodora.

The film as a whole worked well aside from the hippy-trippy bit towards the end which really stamped it as being from the early 1970s, although I think that the basic plot idea or rich kids going bad is one of Freeling's less believable stories.